The Kree are back to destroy the solar system.

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October 22, 2012

Warning: full episode spoilers follow.

With only a few episodes remaining, Earth's Mightiest Heroes is busying itself settling accounts and wrapping up loose threads. And one of the longest-lasting loose threads over the course of Season 2 has been the imprisonment of Captain Marvel and Ronan by S.W.O.R.D. "Operation Galactic Storm" finally returned the Kree Empire to the forefront and managed to deliver a very enjoyable and heart-wrenching episode in the process.

In last week's review of "New Avengers", I complained how Kang's doomsday prophecy from Season 1 was never resolved. As it turns out, that particular conflict was yet to come. This week we learned that the Kree's attempt to create a wormhole near Earth's sun is what caused the terrible destruction in Kang's future timeline. Furthermore, the final outcome rested entirely on Captain America's crucial, last-minute decision. I quickly shifted from being disappointed that such a major plot point was cast aside to being extremely happy with how it was resolved. The stakes in this episode were higher than they ever have been, and thus the emotional resonance was greater.

Much of that emotional resonance centered around the death of Black Panther. It was certainly an unexpected move to kill off a major character this close to the end of the series. But it also caps off a nice character arc for T'Challa, who became the first Panther to venture outside his borders, embrace Western allies, and ultimately sacrifice himself for the good of the world, not just Wakanda. That said, his death scene was just vague enough to leave room for doubt. I've read a few to many superhero comics to believe a character is dead unless I see the mangled body. And even then I'd have my doubts.

The episode provided a nice glimpse of the full team in action (minus the currently on sabbatical Hulk). But easily the standout character this week was Hank Pym, clearly enjoying his new role as Yellowjacket. This is the first substantial screen time Pym has had since his recent transformation. It was fun watching him play the reckless action hero with the cranky Agent Brand as his foil. In particular, his little prank with the Kree time bomb was pretty amusing. Unlike the comics, it seems that his Yellowjacket transformation might actually be a positive step forward for Hank. Not that the series is going to have much more time to explore it. One niggling complaint about Hank's role in the conflict is the fact that he just left Ronan's Universal Weapon sitting there for the Accuser to retrieve. Why wouldn't any reasonably competent superhero retrieve a deadly weapon before teleporting away and prevent it from falling back into the enemy's hands?

Another welcome surprise with this episode was that it effectively ended on a cliffhanger. EMH has followed a pretty rigid standalone episode format since the Secret Invasion storyline wrapped up, and it's nice to see the writers attempt one final, longer epic before wrapping things up. There's still plenty to explore as far as Captain Marvel's conflicting loyalties, the Kree's ultimate plans for Earth, and the question of whether Black Panther is well and truly dead. That should make for an equally engaging penultimate episode. Too bad we have to wait an extra week to see the next chapter.